Saturday, October 31, 2015

10/31/1920 Dick Francis is born

October 31, 1920. A great jockey. A pilot in World War II. A bestselling novelist. And from all I hear, a pretty nice fella. He certainly wrote some of the best opening lines in the business:

Gordon Micheals stood in the fountain with all his clothes on. -BANKER

I looked at my friend and saw a man who had robbed me. -HIGH STAKESArt Matthews shot himself, loudly and messily, in the center of the parade ring at Dunstable races. -NERVE

And he was born on Halloween, not as significant a date in the U.K. as in the U.S. But in his novel The Danger (opening sentence: "There was a god awful cockup in Bologna.") his British hero solves a kidnapping in part because of his knowledge of American Halloween customs.

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What happened on this date in the history of mystery fiction? Read this blog to find out. If you have a suggestion for an event that deserves commemoration put it in a comment on any blog entry. Warning: I don't list birthdays of living individuals.